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Bookmarks Need Homes, Too

Posted on October 11, 2010

The fact of the matter is that I LIKE those things you didn’t know you were donating. They give us interesting objects to sell on eBay sometimes, or they give us something to discuss down at the Booksellers’ Bar and Grille. (There’s one menu just for booksellers who carry their scanners to book fairs: everything on it is identified by bar code only.) I just like to toss out a warning once in a while, so you can’t say I didn’t tell you.

The Alcoholics Anonymous book had nothing TUCKED inside; the book itself caught our attention. It was a presentation copy to the owner, including a bookplate that listed the institution he was being discharged from and the date he was given the book, as well as his name and address. That alone gives a new meaning to the word “anonymous”, but it also included the names and phone numbers of all the members of his chapter. Are you SURE you didn’t want to keep this in the safe deposit box? (I know: the date was decades ago, but even so, it’s a valuable piece of family history, if nothing else.)

I know you were proud of making the team. But that big picture of you in your high school field hockey uniform should possibly also been kept for your descendants. If I’d been choosing a picture to blow up to that size, I’d have waited until there was one where my uniform actually fit.

I listed that cardboard key from your visit to the Playboy Club on eBay, because Playboy souvenirs are always wanted. And don’t worry: although the date and your name are on the back of the key, I didn’t mention those in the listing. (Anyway, they used a code number for which club you visited.)

Tell me how to use this customer club fob from the liquor store. I know all kinds of occasions when it could come in handy.

Until I pulled it out of your donation, I had no idea the state of Chihuahua ever issued its own currency. There is SO much they didn’t teach us about Mexican history in grade school. Especially why your fraternity decided to use Chihuahuan currency from 1915 as tickets to its convention by printing your name and college on the back.

That postcard in which you describe your mother-in-law so vividly: you do know that will be sitting in our box of postcards for sale at the Book Fair, right? A lot of people like blank, unused cards, but there are collectors who find the ones with messages on them FAR more interesting.

I have that check you wrote to ComEd in 1996, if you’re still wondering what you did with it.

Don’t bother to call and claim any of these items: they’re stacked away somewhere by now. I can’t afford to spend too much time on any one object: I might miss some good ones coming in. (Except for the field hockey player; if you’d let me know whether you made it big in the Pro Field Hockey League, I can charge extra for the picture. And DID they ever find a uniform your size?)

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